System and method of providing bandwidth on demand

ABSTRACT

An improved system and method of providing bandwidth on demand for an end user and/or enterprise is disclosed. The method includes: sending a request from the user to a control system for a quality of connection service for a specific time limit and either a specific bandwidth or a codec type, wherein the request also includes a source address and a destination address, optional service type and optional video and/or voice codec negotiation; and determining whether the request will be approved or denied, wherein if the request is approved, reserving resources for a transmission of information of the specified bandwidth for the specified time from the source address to the destination address.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 60/796,660, filed May 2, 2006, entitled: IMPROVEDSYSTEM AND METHOD OF PROVIDING BANDWIDTH ON DEMAND, by inventor KathyMcEwen [Attorney Docket No. 683592-0002].

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to communications systems, andspecifically to an improved system and method of providing guaranteedbandwidth on demand for an end user and/or enterprise.

Internet protocol (IP) networks were designed to handle any traffic, onany port, at any time. The goal was to utilize as many computingplatforms as were available across a consortium of universities,governments and industries willing to share information (Reference IETFRFC 791 Internet Protocol Darpa Internet Program Protocol Specification,September 1981).

With these goals in mind, each of the computing platforms, or routers,were originally designed to be ad-hoc in nature. That is, they broadcaston each of their ports, the routing and cost to send a packet to itself.Each manufacturer of these routers defined their own concept of cost andits associated value. As a result of IP's original design goals, thepath that a packet takes from origin to destination is completelyunpredictable. In the example in FIG. 1, a user is attempting to send IPvideo packets streaming from a source 100 to a destination 102, but theoriginator can not predict nor control how those packets will betransported across an IP network 104, nor can the originator even assumethat all the packets streamed through the network 104 will take the samepath to reach the destination 102. An IP router can not plan how apacket (or stream of packets) will reach its destination, nor canrouters plan how many other routers will transmit the packet. It takes,on average, anywhere from 10 to 20 or more routers to send a packetacross the internet today.

Now referring to FIG. 2, every router stops each incoming packet todetermine whether it is allowed, its class of service, how to route it,and then, because they are processing so many unpredictable packetsizes/rates, they must queue the packets at both the ingress 200 andegress 202 ports, and possibly even at the internal switching matrix204. A typical IP router architecture includes packet switching matrices204, intelligent routing processors 206, and large memory queues at theingress 200 (incoming) and egress 202 (outgoing) ports, as well as at acentralized interconnect level to move packets from one ingress portcard to a different egress port card. With so much queuing andprocessing on each packet, packets may be lost or delayed beyond videoservices quality tolerance.

The services that may be delivered on broadband are many, ranging fromreal-time critical applications for communication purposes: videocalling, multi-player gaming, telemedicine, television studio broadcastinterviews, and high-definition news multicasting to name a few. Theseexamples and a few others are listed in FIG. 3. These real time criticalapplications are very sensitive to any delay and for any that mayinclude video or gaming frames, very sensitive to any variance in thedelay. Applications which include video are also sensitive to anypackets (or frames) which may be lost in the transmission (0.0001%packet loss is the preferred quality for video transmission).

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) was developed to overcome some ofthe traffic engineering constraints of the IP protocols. MPLS allowsoperators to engineer a core network that aggregates traffic from IP,ATM, Frame Relay or even time-division voice domains, across a commonpacket core network. MPLS network operators can pre-define label switchpaths, and ensure that virtual private network traffic is delivered onspecific routes to achieve guaranteed quality of service levels (SeeIETF RFC 2702, Requirements for Traffic Engineering over MPLS).

MPLS standards have expanded to include point-to-multipoint multicasting(Reference IETF 4461: Signaling Requirements for Point-to-MultipointTraffic-Engineered MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSPs)), and resourcereservation protocols (Reference IETF RFC 3209, RSVP-TE: Extensions toRSVP for LSP Tunnels and RFC 4420) that dynamically utilize bandwidthacross the core thus enabling less expensive transport for videobroadcast traffic. The multicasting protocol enables construction of adistribution tree that replicates packets only at the branch points,rather than from the origination point. Now referring to FIG. 4, astream of packets can begin at a single source point in the IP domain,and traverse across an MPLS packet network starting at a point 400,following a controlled path to a specific router at point 402, bypassingany un-necessary MPLS routers like point 404. The Originating MPLSRouter can utilize the point-to-multipoint multicasting capabilities ofMPLS, to instruct MPLS Router 402 to multicast the traffic to anotheruser connected to MPLS Router 406. MPLS also expanded to include aFast-Reroute method, which allows for a 50 millisecond route recovery inthe event of a link failure, comparable to that of optical SONETnetworks. These attributes make MPLS the technology of choice for corenetwork video transport today.

However, MPLS does not readily extend to the customer premiseslocations, as its focus has been on core packet transport aggregation,enabling controlled routing and quality of assurance through the packettransport. Also, MPLS was developed around the concept of deliveringenterprise virtual private networking; thus much of the protocols andmethods of packet quality assurance in MPLS require the utilization of avirtual Local Area Network (LAN).

Although IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standard protocols evolved to tryto address handling real-time multimedia streams across the IP packetdomain, these standards have largely focused on enabling the streamingservices as an overlay solution across existing IP network domains,without addressing any changes to the IP or MPLS routing architectures.Quality assurance requires managing the services end to end, fromcustomer access point to access point. In addition, IMS standards wereintended to be access agnostic, so the customer premises access pointstandards have been separately handled by various wireless (CDMA, GSM,UMTS, WiFi, WiMax, etc.) and wireline (Cable, DSL and Fiber, etc.)access standards.

Recently, focus for broadband applications has moved away from IMS to anevolution of these protocols within the 3GPP organization called TISPAN(Telecommunications & Internet Converged Services and Protocols forAdvanced Networking). TISPAN intends to include methods for handlingresource allocation and quality assurance, but again does not addressthe elements that sit within the customer premises to network accessdomain, leaving those up to the other standards bodies governing thevarious access types.

For the current broadband services deployments taking place, broadbandnetwork operators are utilizing mechanisms like the IEEE 802.1p bitmarking to differentiate the service classes, and route trafficaccordingly. Now referring to FIG. 5, the current services, comprisinglegacy public switched voice 500, video 502 and best-effort internet 504access are served by existing network components, interconnected to theaccess networks via ATM, IP or IP/MPLS routers 506 and/or opticalmultiplexing solutions 508. Consumers and/or enterprises 510 connect viaan access network 512, broadband or narrowband, to the services domainthrough access network equipment such as DSL Access Multiplexors(DSLAMs), Fiber Optic Access (such as Optical Line Terminals-OLTs) andvarious other access technologies. Services are delivered with assuranceby interconnecting to the consumers via the broadband access networkutilizing technologies such as IEEE 802.1 p bit defined service types.There are 8 p bits to differentiate service type—thus only 8 serviceclasses. This is insufficient to cover a multitude of service offeringsthat may all require high quality broadband connections.

Today, the only quality video transport with assurance that operatorscan use are dedicated line, virtual private networking services. Eachnew service that requires a high quality packet transport requires aseparate virtual private network. This does not allow for dynamicbandwidth allocation and utilization—thus it does not economically scaleacross multiple services or across multiple users. An example of isillustrated in FIG. 6.

Video transmission requires compression in order to effectively utilizethe available broadband bandwidth across packet domains. Currently thereare numerous different methods for encoding the video, some standardizedand some are proprietary. Many existing video communication solutionstoday utilize proprietary mechanisms, which are incompatible acrossmulti-vendor and access domains. Additionally, the video compressionmethods vary greatly in the bandwidth they require to transport thevideo in real-time—some solutions are as low as 64 kbps up to 300 Mbps.The bandwidth required can vary based on the codec type and the qualitytype compressed within the codec type. For example, MPEG-4 (MotionPicture Experts Group-4) defines methods to combine and encode videowith sound and text, including the encoding of Standard Definition andHigh Definition.

Therefore, what is needed is an improved method and system of deliveringguaranteed high bandwidth applications to an end user and/or enterpriseend to end.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention follows the access and core network standards, whilecombining the missing elements necessary to build a public switchedvisual network. The invention enables access providers to offerend-to-end high quality visual communications services by dynamicallyutilizing network bandwidth and resources, to offer many services to endusers. In addition, the invention enables the aforementioned services tobe billed in real-time.

Therefore, in accordance with the previous summary, objects, featuresand advantages of the present disclosure will become apparent to aperson of the ordinary skill in the art from the subsequent descriptionand the appended claims taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram representing IP Routing In-efficiencies;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a typical IP Router Architecture;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of Sample Broadband Applications QualityRequirements;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of MPLS Traffic Engineering and Point to MultipointMulti casting;

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a Broadband Access Network;

FIG. 6 is a diagram of Multiple Services Offered with Quality acrossBroadband Network Domains;

FIG. 7 is a diagram of a Controller and Portal Solution in the AccessNetwork;

FIG. 8 is a diagram of a Controller and Portal Solution;

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a Controller and Portal Distributed Deployment;

FIG. 10 is a diagram of a Controller and Portal End-to-End NetworkSolution; and

FIG. 11 is a diagram of a Controller and Portal Architectural Solution.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure can be described by the embodiments given below.It is understood, however, that the embodiments below are notnecessarily limitations to the present disclosure, but are used todescribe a typical implementation of the invention.

The present invention provides an improved unique system and method ofproviding bandwidth on demand for an end user and/or enterprise. It isunderstood, however, that the following disclosure provides manydifferent embodiments, or examples, for implementing different featuresof the invention. Specific examples of components, signals, messages,protocols, and arrangements are described below to simplify the presentdisclosure. These are, of course, merely examples and are not intendedto limit the invention from that described in the claims. Well knownelements are presented without detailed description in order not toobscure the present invention in unnecessary detail. For the most part,details unnecessary to obtain a complete understanding of the presentinvention have been omitted inasmuch as such details are within theskills of persons of ordinary skill in the relevant art. Detailsregarding control circuitry described herein are omitted, as suchcontrol circuits are within the skills of persons of ordinary skill inthe relevant art.

The invention involves taking a distributed approach to handling bearerpackets, with a physically separated controller and managed portalplatform. The Controller handles signaling, routing, dynamic bandwidthadmission control, codec (video and/or voice) negotiation, end-to-endquality assurance, session management, subscriber data, billing,provisioning and associated operational functions. The Portal handlesthe packet bearer transport with the admission control and routinginstructions given by the separate physical Controller. The inventionfits at the access and/or in the core network. Connections can be madebetween consumers, enterprises and/or content providers. For example,consumer to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer,business to business, consumer to content provider, business to contentprovider, content provider to consumer, content provider to business,and content provider to content provider.

Now referring to FIG. 7, the current services, comprising legacy publicswitched voice 700, video 702 and best-effort internet access 704 willcontinue to be served by the existing network components, interconnectedto the access networks 706 as they are today via ATM, IP or IP/MPLSrouters 708 and optical multiplexing solutions 710. The Controller 712and Portal 714 are introduced at the central office 716, in similarlocations as edge IP/MPLS aggregation routers 708. The Controller 712and Portal 714 delivers high quality bandwidth on demand services 705.For example, video and gaming applications, can interconnect to theconsumers 718 via the access network 706.

The Controller 712 accepts requests from an originating end-point toaccess the network with a high quality connection dynamically. TheController 712 then negotiates across the network with the terminatingend-point(s) to set up the connection, and ensures interoperability ofservice type (if used) and video codec type, and quality bandwidthreservation end-to-end.

Instead of trying to introduce a new class of service type for eachadditional high quality service and content provider at the access edge(See FIG. 6), one class of service type is introduced to cover all highquality services (See FIG. 7). Then all traffic requesting this servicetype is routed to an access Controller 714 and 716 Portal for handling.Alternatively, if the broadband access provider does not want toprovision a specific class of service for the Controller and Portal forhandling, a consumer may signal directly to the Controller and Portal.

Now referring to FIG. 8, when one dynamic video or bandwidth user wantsto connect to another, they simply dial a directory number or IP addressor web page to request a connection on demand. The Controller 700 willreceive the request, including bandwidth required and if video, a videocodec type and a service type tag (if applicable) for billing purposes,and determine from its embedded subscriber database whether the user isauthorized to use the bandwidth, video type and service or not, how tobill them, and whether the destination party can be reached.

The Controller 700 and Portal 702 are interconnected to each other andto content providers. The Controller 700 and Portal 702 alsointerconnect consumers, businesses and/or content providers. The controlsignaling connects using protocols directly to consumers, businesses,and/or content providers. The bearer between consumers, businesses,and/or content providers is connected through the Portal platforms 702.

In order to ensure quality, the Controller 700 inter-works with networkprotocols to dynamically provision a dedicated path, including requiredroute and bandwidth, on demand through the network. The Controller 700directs its associated Portal platform 702 to allocate local portresources, and then signals any destination party's Controller toreserve far-end resources.

The Controller 700 enables each bandwidth on demand user, originator andterminator, to negotiate with the network. The negotiation includesinformation elements necessary to ensure an end-to-end video connectionfree from video codec conversion in the core if possible. This avoidsinteroperability issues between user systems, and enables allapplication end-points to communicate freely.

Now referring to FIG. 9, the Controller 700 and Portals 702 can bephysically located in the same location or in separate locations. TheController 700 communicates and controls the portals 702 via a link—thedistance from the Controller 700 to the Portals 702 can be close or veryfar. This allows network owners to optimize transmission utilization tokeep high bandwidth traffic closest to the user, while centralizingrouting, maintenance, operations and control functions in a singleregional location.

The invention takes distributed switching control concepts from thelow-bandwidth voice domain, and extends them to the variable-bandwidthpacket routing domain. Moreover, the Portal 702 is under the directmanagement of the Controller 700. It only accepts traffic on its portswhen authorized by the Controller 700 in real-time, and notifies theController 700 if a user's traffic terminates or exceeds allowance. ThePortal 702 does not perform new routing on any packet, and only acts onthe information provided by the controller 700. If any packets arereceived on any port at the Portal 702, which are arriving from a userthat has not been authorized to use it, then those packets are discardedwithout prejudice. If an authorized user should exceed the limitauthorized, the Controller 700 is informed, and an alarm is raised. TheController 700 determines whether the user who is exceeding their limitshould be disconnected, or allowed to continue, and instructs the Portal702 according to a pre-set time limit. The Controller 700 contains acompletely integrated bandwidth/portal admission control, routing andelement management solution, which tracks, manages, and bills for allusage (Controller 700 plus its subordinate Portals 702). Furthermore,the maximum limit of Portals 702 to Controller 700 is determined basedon the aggregate subscriber usage capacity across all Portals 700.

Now referring to FIG. 10, the Controller 700 and Portals 702 serve theaccess networks at the access locations, which are near consumers,businesses, and/or near to content providers. The Controller 700 andPortal 702 interconnect to each other and any other platforms, whichcould be via existing IP/MPLS routers or multiplexing equipment or othertransport connection mechanisms. The consumers 1004, 1006 are connecteddirectly to the Controller 700 and Portal 702 across the access. Contentproviders, back-office provisioning, billing and element managementsystems interconnect to the Controller 700 and Portals 702. Thebest-effort internet is bypassed completely for any high qualitybroadband connections. In addition, all provisioning, element managementand routing is managed at the Controller 700, and is visible via aremote connection. Furthermore, the Controller supports flexiblecharging arrangements that can be based on any combination of or singleelement of service type, time elapsed, codec type and bandwidth used onthe network; and this can be billed for either after the session hasterminated, or in real-time through a pre-paid billing mechanism whichallows for termination of the session at any time based on availablecredit(s). Originating and terminating party records are issued, orboth, including information about route used for transport chargingpurposes. If users are connecting across regions, states, nations orcarriers, the information is recorded for billing purposes.

Now referring to FIG. 11, a Controller 700 and Portal 702 serve theaccess networks at the access locations 1104. The Controller 700 andPortal 702 interconnect to each other and any other platforms 1106,which could be via existing IP/MPLS routers 1108 and/or multiplexingequipment and/or any other transport mechanisms. In addition, theconsumers 1110, businesses 1112 and or content providers 1114 areconnected, for control signaling via path 1116 and via path 1118 forbearer path, directly to the Controller 700 and Portal 702 across theaccess domain. The Controller 700 includes I/O ports 1120, 1122, and1124 connecting a signaling/security function 1126 to a messagedistribution function 1128 that handles distributing all controlsignaling to the subscriber data function 1130, session managementfunction 1132, routing/bandwidth admission and quality assurancemanagement function 1134, and handles all functions includingbilling/OA&M 1136, necessary for the broadband services to bedynamically connected and managed with quality. The Portal 702 includesI/O ports 1138 on line cards 1140 for the bearer connections, aswitching matrix 1142 and a portal connectivity processing element 1144.The content services 1114 interconnects to the Controller 700 and Portal702. The back-office provisioning, billing and element managementsystems 1132 interconnect to the Controller 700 and Portal 702. Thebest-effort internet 1146 is bypassed completely for any high qualitybroadband connections.

The previous description of the disclosed embodiments is provided toenable those skilled in the art to make or use the present invention.Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent tothose skilled in the art and generic principles defined herein may beapplied to other embodiments without departing from the spirit or scopeof the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to belimited to the embodiments shown herein but is to be accorded the widestscope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosedherein.

1. A method of providing bandwidth on demand to an end user, the methodcomprising: sending a request for the user to a control system for aquality of connection service for a specific time limit and either aspecific bandwidth or a codec type, wherein the request also includes asource address and a destination address; and determining whether therequest will be approved or denied, wherein if the request is approved,instructing a bearer platform, by the control system, in setting updynamic bandwidth connections, wherein the bearer platform responds tocontroller designated bearer port and route selection decisions todeliver high quality and low latency bandwidth connectionspoint-to-point and point-to-multipoint and wherein the bearer port istightly controlled by a remote platform such that all ingress and agreestraffic bandwidth admission is managed by the remote platform; andreserving resources for a transmission of information of the specifiedbandwidth, which is managed and monitored by the controller for thespecified time from the source address to the destination address. 2.The method of claim 1 wherein the request also includes at least one ofthe following: a service type, a video code type and a voice codec typeand wherein the codec type determines an amount of bandwidth requiredfor the user.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the request is sent to aportal.
 4. The method of claim 3 further including instructing theportal by a controller.
 5. The method of claim 4 further including aplurality of portals.
 6. The method of claim 4 further includingconnecting a plurality of I/O ports to a signaling/security function toa message distribution function that handles distributing all controlsignaling to a subscriber data function, a session management function,billing function and a routing/bandwidth admission and quality assurancemanagement function.
 7. The method of claim 4 wherein the portalincludes I/O ports on line cards for the bearer connections, a switchingmatrix and a portal connectivity processing element.
 8. The method ofclaim 4 further including interconnecting a content services device tothe controller and the portal.
 9. The method of claim 4 furtherincluding interconnecting back-office provisioning, billing and elementmanagement systems to the controller and portal.
 10. A method ofproviding bandwidth on demand to an end user, the method comprising:sending a request for the user to a control system for a quality ofconnection service for a specific time limit and either a specificbandwidth or a codec type, to be determined by the user upontermination, wherein the request also includes a source address and adestination address; instructing a bearer platform, by the controlsystem, in setting up dynamic bandwidth connections, wherein the bearerplatform makes a bearer port and route selection decisions to deliverhigh quality and low latency bandwidth connections point-to-point andpoint-to-multipoint and wherein the bearer port is tightly controlled bya remote platform such that all ingress and agrees traffic bandwidthadmission is managed by the remote platform; and determining whether therequest will be approved or denied, wherein if the request is approved,reserving resources for a transmission of information of the specifiedbandwidth for the specified quality from the source address to thedestination address, until either the user or the network ownerdetermines to terminate the connection in real-time, upon whichreal-time billing records may be generated recording available usageinformation or real-time intervention by a pre-paid billing solution.11. The method of claim 10 wherein the request also includes at leastone of the following: a service type, a video code type and a voicecodec type and wherein the codec type determines an amount of bandwidthrequired for the user.
 12. The method of claim 10 wherein the controlsystem includes a plurality of I/O ports connected to asignaling/security function to a message distribution function thathandles distributing all control signaling to a subscriber datafunction, a session management function and a routing/bandwidthadmission and quality assurance management function.
 13. The method ofclaim 10 wherein the bearer platform includes I/O ports on line cardsfor the bearer connections, a switching matrix and a portal connectivityprocessing element.
 14. The method of claim 10 further includinginterconnecting a content services device to the controller and theportal.
 15. The method of claim 10 further including interconnectingback-office provisioning, billing and element management systems to thecontrol system and the bearer platform.
 16. A method of providingbandwidth on demand to an end user, the method comprising: sending arequest for the user to a control system for a quality of connectionservice for a specific time limit and either a specific bandwidth or acodec type, wherein the request also includes a source address and adestination address, wherein the control system includes a controllerand a portal; and determining whether the request will be approved ordenied, wherein if the request is approved, reserving resources for atransmission of information of the specified bandwidth for the specifiedtime from the source address to the destination address.
 17. The methodof claim 16 wherein the request also includes at least one of thefollowing: a service type, a video code type and a voice codec type andwherein the codec type determines an amount of bandwidth required forthe user.
 18. The method of claim 16 further including connecting aplurality of I/O ports to a signaling/security function to a messagedistribution function that handles distributing all control signaling toa subscriber data function, a session management function and arouting/bandwidth admission and quality assurance management function.19. The method of claim 16 wherein the portal includes I/O ports on linecards for the bearer connections, a switching matrix and a portalconnectivity processing element.
 20. The method of claim 16 furtherincluding interconnecting a content services device to the controllerand the portal.
 21. The method of claim 16 further includinginterconnecting back-office provisioning, billing and element managementsystems to the controller and portal.